Its very specific habitat requirements mean that the beetle is very rare, and even at the three sites where it has been found, there are few suitable trees, and their number is declining.

Windsor Forest is considered to be the most important site in Britain for invertebrates associated with the decaying timber of ancient trees.

[1] The beetle is listed in Annex II of the EC Habitats Directive and Schedule 5 of the UK's Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

These are Windsor Forest (where it was first found in 1937), Bredon Hill in Worcestershire (1989),[5] and Dixton Wood SSSI in Gloucestershire (1998).

[6] The violet click beetle is one of the species that the Back from the Brink project aims to save from extinction in Britain.